Desperation
by Brianna Aisling
Summary: Ranma has returned to the Tendo Dojo, tired and broken, seeking comfort in Akane's arms. (set in the future)


--Desperation--

            He was heavy between her legs.

            She lay still, feeling his breath hot against her shoulder, his pigtail soft against her breast.

            It had been a desperate coupling, heavy with hate and dark with frustration.  He'd left her feeling empty and unsatisfied, but also tired and sympathetic as he cried against her chest.

            She shifted slightly, and he whimpered, tightening his arms around her in his sleep, thinking she was going to leave.  She murmured softly to him, wrapping her arms around him.  He sighed and relaxed again.

* * *

            Ranma stood at the edge of the roof, arms crossed over his chest, and stared darkly down at the pond.  Akane sat next to it, legs folded up under her, hands in her lap.  She hadn't said anything that morning, keeping her eyes closed to let him escape as he'd wanted, pretending to be asleep because he had wanted her to be.

            He knew what he had done and why he had done it, but he also knew it wasn't right.  He shouldn't have done it and because he had, he should now pay penance.  Honor demanded it.

            Below him, Akane turned to look up at him.  She gestured to him, and he stepped off the roof, landing gently on the ground.  He sat down across the pond from her, only to move again when she beckoned to him and touched the ground beside her.

            She leaned up against him, using him for comfort and balance as she shifted her weight.  He let her, knowing that it couldn't ever compare to what he'd used her for.

            "Was it bad?" she asked softly, already knowing the answer.

            "Yeah…"

            "What happened?"

            "Fighting," he answered.  "Blood.  Domination.  Hate."

            "Death."

            "That too."

            "How much?"

            "Why do you want to know?"  He didn't want to tell her this.  Bad enough he'd already taken her physically the way he had.

            "I'm trying to understand," Akane said.  Her voice was still soft, gentle.  "You're different, very different, from who you were when you left.  I'm trying to understand the change.  Trying to understand what she did to you, how she did it to you, how she _could_ do it to you."

            Ranma was quiet.  She was trying to understand something he didn't understand.  He'd lived it, that hell, and was no closer to an answer than he had ever been.  She would never get what she was looking for.

            "I don't know.  It fades in and out.  My memory has never been very good."

            She nodded against his shoulder.  She'd learned that before he'd left with Shampoo, as people from his past had come and gone but he never knew them until something sharp stood out.

            "I…I killed…a lot.  Men…and women."

            "Children?"

            "Never."  His answer was immediate.  Akane slid her hand into his.  He clutched it as if it were a gift he never thought he'd receive.  Maybe it was.

            "What happened?"

            "I wouldn't be dominated."

            She was quiet for a moment.  "I want to be sorry because it meant that whatever happened, happened, but I'm glad you weren't dominated."

            "I was in a way though.  Look at me, Akane.  I'd have been better off."

            "Maybe.  But maybe not.  You're just broken right now.  Wounded.  It will heal because it wasn't a person putting you in chains.  It was life making its mark on you, Ranma.

            "I realized, after you came and left, that we don't grow when things are good.  It was never nice, the life you were living, but it was satisfactory to you, and you weren't changing.  Life was making you change, Ranma.  You lived the same way you'd always been, and it thought it was too long."

            "So, it ruined me."

            "You aren't ruined."

            "I'm tainted, Akane," Ranma said bitterly.  "I've murdered, and I took you without caring what you wanted."

            "You were in a war.  I didn't fight you either.  I may not have offered, but I didn't refuse.  Now, I think if I had known, I would have offered, and, for me, it's as good as if I had offered then.  So, you didn't take anything that wasn't already yours, Ranma."

            Ranma turned and pressed his face against the top of her head, gratitude slipping down his cheeks in warm rivers of salt water.  Akane wrapped her arms around him, leaving him feeling like he'd been wrapped in grace.

* * *

            He took her again that night, but this time it was slow, and afterwards, she was limp and boneless, sated and loved.  He lay between her legs again, his breath hot on her shoulder, his pigtail soft against her breast, and this time it was peace that made him weep silently.

--End: Desperation--

_Special thanks to Alison for her help editing._

_I have a website up.  Please feel free to visit: www.geocities.com/frankie_anne_


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